OMD 31 Day Challenge - Day 16 - Ruffian/Half Moon

Hi everyone! It's hump day of the challenge!! After today we're officially on the later half of the challenge...but the themes get more complicated :)

Today is Ruffian/Half Moon and I decided to go with a Half Moon manicure. I've never done one before and I quite like how it looks :) It won't be the last one I do!

I decided to go with a very geometric look. I started with one quick coat of Wet N Wild Black Creme and then I stamped it with Gals plate 17. Once that was dry I used page protectors and went over the top portion of my nails with Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Just in Lime! which was opaque enough to cover both the black and the white. I really like the juxtaposition of the triangles peeking through the curve.

A side note about the Gals plates, with the curved cutout at the bottom they're too small for my nails unless they're filed to their absolute shortest and even then it's a very precise operation to get the designs to fit. It's super disappointing because I really love some of the designs. Half moons seem to be a decent way to utilize some of the designs though, it's a good way to make them work. The plates are really challenging my creativity to use them...which is good in a way but sad because I just want them to work as full nail designs like they're intended. If they didn't do the little curved cutout at the bottom they would be much better :(

Thanks for reading!!

Check out the other mani's here

OMD 31 Day Challenge - Day 12 - Dots

Today is Dot day and Friday, double yay!

I've been using a LOT of dots in this challenge so far so I decided not to do another one of the same style I've already done. So today I have 3D dots! I really like the way they look like they're trying to escape off my nails!!

I started with two coats of Essie Smooth Sailing as a base. It's a gorgeous blue with a delightful shimmer! Once that was dry I used Wet N Wild Black Creme to do the dots, then I went back over them with Barielle Going to the Chapel and offset the second dots a bit to make them look 3D. I really enjoyed these nails...I'll definitely be trying this again!

Thanks for reading!

Check out all the other awesome challenge manis here

OMD 31 Day Challenge - Day 4 - Black and White

Today is black and white! I love black and white mani's, they're so sharp and eye-catching.

Unfortunately my mani today is neither sharp nor eye-catching. I attempted to do an ombre saran wrap look, but I think my color choices could use a bit of work.

All fingers started with three coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls. Here's what I used on each of my fingers for the saran wrap effect:

• Thumb: Sinful Colors Tantalize
• Pointer: NYC Sidewalkers
• Middle: Maybelline Express Finish Cool Couture
• Ring: China Glaze Concrete Catwalk
• Pinky: Wet N Wild Black Creme

I'm kind of meh about this whole manicure. I feel like there's not enough difference between the shades when I used the saran wrap. I think this would be a neat look but needs better color choices than the ones I made. Maybe I'll try it again sometime with different polishes. Lots of potential, bad execution. Oh well, part of blogging is about sharing the good with the not so good right?! 

 Thanks for reading!

You can find the other participants mani's here

Yellow Rays

I looooove striping tape! I love how it makes such clean and crisp lines and easily adds interest to a manicure.

Today I have some yellow rays, made using striping tape. This mani sort of reminds me of sun rays breaking through the dark of the morning just itching to lighten up the day.

For my pointer and pinky finger I used two coats of Wet N Wild Night Prowl. On my middle and ring finger I used three coats of Joe Fresh Pineapple. If I were wearing Pineapple by itself I likely would have done one more coat, it was still sort of streaky, darn yellow polish! Since I was planning on covering it up though I stopped at three coats. It was opaque, just not perfect, but good enough for the next step! Once Pineapple was dry I arranged striping tape in a sort of ray pattern and then covered it with a quite thick coat of Night Prowl as the yellow didn't want to be covered that easily.

The purple flecks in Night Prowl were more prominent in real life than I was able to catch in photos. You can see the gorgeous purple quite clearly in the bottle.

Looking at the photos now, I should have tried a matte top coat with this mani! I love mattifying manicures, and now I want to see what this would have looked like. Oh well...maybe next time I'll remember!

Thanks for reading!

Feeling Froggy?

I've been feeling a bit under the weather lately and am just now starting to feel better, but I have this stubborn frog in my throat that just won't go away. I decided to give my throat frog a little buddy and did a frog themed manicure!

I started with two coats of Essie Da Bush. On the first coat this polish was very runny and sheer, but it evened out quite well with two coats. On my ring finger I hand painted a much happier frog than the one living in my throat! I used Sinful Colors Happy Ending for the frog himself, the whites of his eyes are done with Barielle Going to the Chapel and the eyes and outlining are done using Wet N Wild Black Creme. He didn't turn out quite the way I wanted him to since I'm a perfectionist and he's not perfect, but I still think he's cute! And there's always room for improvement right? It just gives me an excuse to practice my freehand skills another time!!

 And here's a little close up of the frog himself!

Thanks for reading!